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Review by Seth Rogovoy
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[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
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[FILM REVIEW] The Good Shepherd
2.2.07
THE GOOD SHEPHERD
Directed by Robert DeNiro
Starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, John Turturro, Alec Baldwin, and William Hurt
By SETH ROGOVOY, editor-in-chief and critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
Leave it to Robert DeNiro, that quintessential actor of the 1970s, to revive the Seventies-style paranoid government thriller and to make it relevant to the 2000s.
DeNiro--who also plays a small role, sort of Obi Wan Kenobi to Matt Damon's young CIA agent, warning him of the evil that will inevitably corrupt this project born out of the ideals of protecting the world from the encroaching Soviet empire -- creates a mood of tension and suspense that never let's go throughout the movie's nearly three hours, that basically tells the story of the creation and eventual corruption of the CIA through the career of one man.
Matt Damon's understated performance as Agent Wilson is well-balanced by Angelina Jolie's star turn as his embittered, ignored wife (stretching credibility indeed). But the supporting cast, including John Turturro, Alec Baldwin, and William Hurt, keep the movie popping and keeps viewers scratching their heads over who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, and are there really ANY good guys.
Slowness of pace should not be confused with depth of meaning - and the volume of period detail in any movie does not ensure genuine authenticity. I thought this movie was extremely laboured, and, for all its portentiousness, to be dependent on cliched stereotypes and lazy characterisations. According to The Good Shepherd, the WASPs who founded the CIA were rich, arrogant, emotionally-constipated, college kids - who were all too-clever-by-half for their own good, who were never happier than when they got the chance to slip into drag, and who believed that, in some intangible way, they actually owned the USA. Everyone else who appeared in the movie also corresponded to worn-out stereotypes. The first boss of the CIA was not a WASP, but an Irish-American, and was, therefore, played by de Niro to archtypal expectations as a tough, humorous, regular guy - who kocked back whiskey, while the effete WASPs sipped at their cocktails. The Mafia boss, played by Joe Pesci (almost as a parody of previous gangster roles), worried that his children (or grandchildren) might burn their feet on hot sand at the beach. The WASPs, however, were quite prepared to destroy their own families' chances of any future happiness - and for what? From this movie, it would appear that there never was any military threat from the Soviet Union. A Soviet defector tells us so when he is on an LSD trip. Needless to say, the CIA don't buy this - just as they don't believe that the defector has revealed his true identity. Subsequently, we learn that he was whom he said he was - so, presumably, he was also being truthful when he claimed that Soviet power never threatened world peace. What are the political implications of this supposed to be? I suppose it implies that the USA should not have followed a robust foreign policy in relation, say, to Eastern Europe? But couldn't it also suggest that US policy should actually have been more confrontational? And exactly what is the nature of the historical mission in which all these well-bred WASPs were apparently engaged? On the basis of this film, all they seem to want is to make the world safe for light opera, choral music and mud-wrestling? Nothing real seems to be at stake for them - or the rest of the world, for that matter. They are all as one-dimenional as Wilson - the central character played by Matt Damon - whose consistent lack of emotion borders on autism. It is in keeping with the underlying opportunism of this movie that Wilson's one chance at true love should be with a woman whose deafness does not appear to have any practical impact on her life - beyond signalling in shorthand, that, as someone who is physically "challenged", she is a "deep" and "good" person. The Good Shepherd purports to be a very serious piece of work - in reality, it is remarkably shallow, glib and (despite its agonising slowness) it doesn't even have the courage of its own convictions.
3/5/2007
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